Savory Cheddar Cheese Muffins

These savory hassle-free, gluten-free low-carb muffins are soft, flavorful and they will be gone very soon once you bake them. You’ll see.

Tips for making the muffins

Everything is easy and simple here, so just grab the stuff and bake yourself the highlight of the day. Or breakfast.

If you would like to sift the coconut flour for an absolutely lump-free result, that’s fine. Well, this is especially good if you would like to impress somebody. However, I tend to be always so in a hurry that I simply don’t do any sifting. And the good thing is that coconut flour doesn’t get lumpy very easily when added to liquids, or at least you can get rid of the lumps by whisking. But if I baked these muffins, let’s say, for a president, I definitely would sift the coconut flour. Most probably twice.

Since the yield is quite small — 6 medium size muffins, 5 a bit larger ones — you might want to double the amount of ingredients for a big hunger.

Developing the recipe

I have had a big bag of cheddar cheese powder in my pantry for some time. The idea of powdered cheese sounds so great. It’s handy to use and you can add it to any savory dough, breading, batter or sauce. So, really everywhere.

I think the first time when I used the cheddar cheese powder was in sauce. I added also some cream and powdered tomato. Nice. I’ve been planning to try the cheddar cheese powder with broccoli, but before that I wanted to use it in baking.

First I made some nice cheddar cheese bites, which contained also whey protein. They were okay, but I didn’t consider the recipe to be good enough to be published. Then I thought that the cheese powder might make great flavor for savory muffins. It did.

I added first 2 teaspoons baking powder, then 1 teaspoon baking powder and finally I made a batch completely without baking powder. Personally I like the texture when there is no baking powder. The more baking powder, the bigger the holes in the texture. Without baking powder the texture is slightly spongy, but not in a bad way. Without baking powder the texture isn’t too dense, like one might assume. Well, it’s difficult to explain, so you have to try the muffins yourself and whether you prefer them with baking powder or without

To one batch I also added shredded cheddar cheese instead of powdered cheddar cheese. The flavor was stronger, and the texture was full of big holes, I guess because I used that 2 teaspoons baking powder. Personally I prefer the texture with cheddar cheese powder, it’s smooth and soft. Simply more pleasant and easy to eat. A piece of cake. Well, muffin in this case.

Still another interesting note about baking powder: when using baking powder, the baking time was remarkably shorter than without it. With baking powder the baking time was just 15 minutes while without baking powder the time was approximately 25 minutes.

I also tried different amounts of cheddar cheese powder. 1/4 cup (60 ml) was too little, there wasn’t enough flavor. 1/2 cup (120 ml) made the muffins far too salty. So, I ended up with 1/3 cup (80 ml), which was just perfect.

Tips for variation

I’ve added 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder to give some extra palatable flavor. However, please feel free to omit it completely, or replace it with fresh, crushed garlic. This is perfect especially if you are a great garlic fan.

Instead of garlic, you can use any of your favorite herbs. Fresh or dry, anything you have available.

Make surprise muffins by adding a pitted olive on top of each muffin, right before putting the muffins in the oven. Well, basically you can add anything: instead of olive, use a piece of sausage, a dab of cream cheese, a cherry tomato or anything you fancy at the moment. The topping will sink nicely to the middle of the muffin. This is a great opportunity to use any leftovers from your fridge.

You can add also some compound butter on top of each muffin, just before putting the muffins in the oven.

Hi! I was wondering how much nutritional yeast you were planning to use? Cheddar cheese powder adds to the texture, and I’m not sure what nutritional yeast will do. It certainly would be an interesting experiment, so please tell me how it went if you try it out!